“My name is Orpheus. This telemetry is being transmitted via radio signals received by Charon 2 at the hydrogen gas-liquid interface, relayed via the Ra at the thermalisation layer to Charon 1 at Station NTB-4, and then to Mission Control on Amalthea. I am in an excellent state of health and all subsystems are operating normally. I remain fully cognisant of and fully committed to the objectives of the mission.
“I am currently descending through an ocean of molecular hydrogen-helium. I am quite safe. For this first descent I have been emplaced far from any of the great volcanic-like features we call Sources. Their investigation is for the future.
“The pressure and temperatures I am experiencing are rising steadily. My configuration continues to adjust as designed. In the greatest depths my consciousness will be contained in little more than a swarm of slivers of enhanced crystalline carbon—an advanced form of diamond—kept solid at such extreme temperatures by the very pressures I will endure. In this way I will leverage the physical conditions to maintain my structure, as opposed to fighting them.
“There is no visible light. I fall through darkness. But the hydrogen ocean is electrically neutral, and long-wavelength radio waves can penetrate the gloom.
“Nevertheless I am aware of forms, structures, moving through the dark around me. Immense, shapeless masses.
“These may be inanimate blocks of some more exotic high-pressure form of hydrogen. Drifting icebergs. Or perhaps they are animate, a form of life, living off the thin drizzle of complex compounds from the atmosphere above, or even feeding off this ocean’s gradual temperature differences, or the saturated electromagnetic radiation. Humans and Machines have found life wherever they have travelled; life forms here would not be a surprise. Their movement shows no pattern, however, no intent. Even if there is life, this featureless ocean may be too impoverished to support mind. An encounter with these deep Jovians, if that is what they are, must wait for more advanced missions than mine.
“It is anticipated that at a depth of approximately twelve thousand kilometres, where the pressures will approach one million Earth atmospheres, I will reach an interface to a realm of different physics, and my design will come under fresh challenges.
“For now, however, I am comfortable.”